


Disguise Self

by agrotera



Series: Verbal, Somatic, Material [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bath Houses, Disguise, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 08:16:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18517513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrotera/pseuds/agrotera
Summary: During their first visit to Zadash, Molly disappears—and Caleb, suspicious, follows.





	Disguise Self

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-post of a fic I deleted some months ago. I was worried someone in my real life had found my work. I'm still worried! But maybe I also don't care anymore. In any case, I'm sorry for doing that, and I'm sorry if you missed this fic!

Even huddled beneath a cold, driving rain, Zadash was a brilliant city.  It wasn’t substantially larger than the other cities Molly had visited when he was with the circus, nor was it especially more beautiful. The people certainly weren’t kinder. It stank of mud and horse dung, and the rain only helped to make the smell all the more oppressive. But there were little carts that lined the main avenues, and the proprietors of those little carts would sell you a bladder of still-hot mulled wine and an armful of cardamom and pistachio pastries for two silver coins and a smile.

All things considered—the gnolls, the fool bandits, the gods-be-twice-fucked weather—Molly couldn’t complain.

He took a long pull of the wine. Warm cinnamon and pungent clove bloomed on his tongue. Beau stuffed one of the pastries in her mouth and gave Molly a chipmunk-cheeked, crumb-dusted grin. The wine sloshed in his belly. Beau belched.

Brilliant.

By the time they arrived at the Invulnerable Vagrant, Beau was drunk on sugar and Molly was just plain drunk. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling, loitering sloshed and sodden outside a shop that looked much too rich for them, but all the same, Molly hoped the rest of their merry band of idiots didn’t feel like taking their time. He’d hardly call himself picky, but given his druthers, he’d rather drink inside a building than out, and even his princely patience was beginning to wear thin.

“Fuck, these are good,” Beau muttered around sticky fingers. She’d made her way through half the flaky little pastries and didn’t show any sign of filling up. “You think Jester’ll be mad if I eat all these? I’m starving.”

Molly shrugged. “You bought them.” Not that he could have stopped her from doing as she liked, anyway.

She wiped crumbs off her chin. “Mm, no. That was you.” Beau felt absently for the coin purse tied at her waist for confirmation.

Molly did the same, and his purse did indeed feel lighter than he remembered it being. Huh. He stared into the dark hole of the open wine bladder in his hand, then looked back at Beau. Her face swam in and out of focus for a moment before snapping into clarity. She was still wearing her goggles atop her head. Caleb was absolutely right—she did look like a nerd.

Molly snorted. He should tell Caleb that. Tell him that he was right. He’d like that. Probably.

The thick wooden door of the Invulnerable Vagrant swung open. Jester barreled out into the street and nearly knocked Beau to the ground, something pink and garish held tightly in her arms.

“Beau, Beau, Beau, look!” Jester shoved the pink thing in Beau’s face. It took Molly a moment to place it thanks to the effect of the excellent wine but place it he did. It was a haversack. A truly hideous haversack.

“Wow, that’s, uh—“ Beau poked at the sack in an unsuccessful attempt to feign interest. “That sure is a bag.”

Molly stifled a laugh. Bless her heart—even when Beau was not trying to be an asshole, she just couldn’t help herself.

“It’s really big inside.” Jester preened. “You could put, like, so many donuts in here.”

That piqued Beau’s interest. But before she could give the haversack a closer inspection, Jester noticed the last two pastries Beau was holding and shrieked. “Beau, are those for me?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, uh, here.” Beau hastily shoved the remaining cardamom pastries into Jester’s hands, who managed both them and the pack with a performer’s ease. “Molly bought these for you,” Beau said and turned to give Molly a thumbs-up.

Behind Jester, the door swung open again. Fjord, Nott, and Caleb trudged onto the rainy street. Caleb gently closed the door behind them, careful that it didn’t slam, and then turned back around, shoulders hunched up high around his ears. He shrank back into the shadows beneath the shop’s eaves, away from the pools of light cast by the guttering street lamps.

Molly nearly dropped the wineskin—only his entertainer’s reflexes saved him from embarrassment. Even half in shadow, there was no mistaking it. Caleb was… clean. He still wore the ratty overcoat and thrice-too-many-times-patched breeches, but the crust of dirt and dried sweat that had colored his skin a dull, dusty beige was gone.

Molly sucked in a quick breath. That fucker. That absolute bastard.

He was handsome.

A brief pang of something he couldn’t quite name speared through Molly’s chest. Of course, the garbage wizard was prettier than he had any right to be. Of course, his stupid blue eyes were entrancing in his weirdly pale human face. Of course, of course, of course.

Gods, how awful.

 

#

 

Caleb hugged his arms tighter around his chest and hung his head just a touch lower. He hadn’t asked that strange simulacrum man to magically tidy him. He certainly hadn’t wanted him to. It had been a condition of him remaining in his shop. He would have left, had he been given the choice, but he’d only realized what the simulacrum intended once the spell was already cast.

He tried to recall the words the man had muttered and the motions he’d made with his hands. The memory of the spell gnawed at him, like a word that hung just on the tip of his tongue. The sensation had been strange. A chill had run along the skin of his arms beneath his coat, then up his neck and down his torso. An arcane breath had blown, and it had carried away the filth he hid behind.

He reached into his coat, unholstered his spell tome, and scribbled down a few notes with a nub of graphite from his pocket. Something to look up later. Maybe at that archive, if he could ever get there.

He snapped the book shut and looked up. With a start, he realized the rest of the group was staring at him. In that moment, he wished for nothing so much as the ability to sink into the wall, to become invisible, to fly.

Jester, who stood nearer to Fjord than she strictly needed to, shot Caleb a broad grin that became a delighted giggle when Caleb’s perpetual frown only deepened. “Wow, Caleb, you’re so clean! You don’t smell at all!”

Beau doubled over, hiccupping through her laughter. Fjord gave Caleb an awkward half smile, but if he had an opinion, he kept it to himself. Poor bastard, his look seemed to say. It’ll be over soon.

Nott shot a narrow-eyed look at Jester, then padded quietly over to Caleb and sniffed at the arm of his coat. “You smell weird,” she said, and glared back at the door to the Invulnerable Vagrant. When it did not spontaneously burst into flames, Caleb breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Mollymauk said nothing, but he watched Caleb, scrutinized him, considered him like he’d seen his face before but couldn’t quite place it. He clutched tightly at something in his hand. A shadow of unease passed over his face.

Mollymauk abruptly shoved whatever he’d been holding into Beau’s hands. “I’ll meet you back at the Tap in a bit,” he said, his voice wavering with false cheer. “I’ve a few things to take care of.” He turned on his heel and hurried off into the rain-soaked dark.

“Okay, bye!” Jester shouted through cupped hands. “Don’t get murdered!”

Brows narrowed, Beau started after him, but Fjord caught her arm, bringing her up short. “Let ‘im go.”

Nott took a swig from her flask. “What was that about?”

Beau ducked out of Fjord’s grip. “You know, I think Nott’s got the right idea. I could use a fucking drink.” She linked her arm with Jester’s, and they shared a mischievous smile.

Fjord rubbed his chin. “I wouldn’t say no to an ale. Hells, maybe two.”

“Amateurs.” Nott rolled her eyes at the both of them and took another swig from her flask.

Caleb still stood by the door. He wanted to want to move, but he couldn’t quite convince his legs to follow through on his desire. He felt suddenly visible, suddenly seen, and the heart-stopping panic that came with that feeling froze him in place. And if he were of a mind to be rational, he hadn’t even the money for a drink—not after the obscene amount of coin he’d just spent on paper and ink.

But that was all a thin shadow beside his chief concern: Mollymauk. He’d been in an awful hurry to leave. Where to and what for, he hadn’t said.

Nott cast a concerned look his way. “Are you coming, Caleb?”

“Go on ahead,” he said. Even with his thoughts elsewhere, he was careful to annunciate each word. It was a nervous tic he’d acquired—been forced to acquire—during his… education. “I would like to take a walk.”

“Suit yourself.” Fjord shrugged and started off down the street.

Fjord had been that way since Alfield—aloof, almost cold. He spoke to Caleb rarely, only when he had to. And Caleb had grown, well, not used to it, but accepting of it. Fjord had every reason to think poorly of him considering how he’d fallen to pieces that night in the mine. He was unreliable. It made perfect, painful sense. Still, it stung. Caleb felt gingerly for the tight little braid hidden among the wild mass of his unkempt hair. The gash was tender yet, but it was healing well. Fjord had done a good job.

Nott lingered beside him, looking between the group and him and back again. “Are you sure you don’t want to come, Caleb? What if something happens?”

With the group several strides away, Caleb felt safe enough to walk into the light. He fell into step alongside Nott.

“Ja, I am certain,” he said and smiled crookedly at her. “There is an archive near here, specializing in magic and arcane things. I thought I might take a look.”

Nott’s shoulders lost a fraction of their tension. “Sounds boring.”  She unhooked the corner of her porcelain half-mask and gave him a gap-toothed, pointy smile.

She didn’t know about the deep cut in his scalp. She didn’t know about how Fjord had fixed it. He hadn’t told her, and he didn’t plan to. The thought of explaining the circumstances—him, weeping beside her bed while she slept, expressing an emotional ownership over her that he had no right to—filled him with a special kind of nauseous dread.

He crouched down a bit. He didn’t do it often; something about the action felt almost condescending, like he was speaking to a child, and Nott was surely not that, but standing was hardly better, not when he towered over her by nearly three feet. Nott hadn’t ever said which she preferred, him standing or crouching, but neither had he really asked her. He should. But he wouldn’t just then. He needed to catch up to Mollymauk, and there’d be time enough for awkward conversation with Nott later.

“It’s terribly boring,” Caleb said. He met her eyes. They were bright like twin moons, open, and knowing in a shrewd way, like she saw all of him—the good and the very bad—and didn’t have much of an opinion on it either way. It was soothing, somehow. “But…” He trailed off, looked away. “You know.”

Nott reattached the half-mask. “Yeah.” Her voice was muffled behind the scuffed porcelain, but still he heard the several layers of her meaning beneath that one word.

“Look out for Beauregard,” he said. “She is in a mood. Hungry for trouble, I think.”

Nott snorted. “I won’t stop her drinking, if that’s what you mean. Not unless she gets in a fight. And even then—“

“I know. I am just saying, you know, keep both eyes open, ja? We are new here, and she is young and stupid.”

“And a lightweight,” Nott said.

Caleb could almost see her smirk behind her mask. “Precisely.”

Nott glanced back over her shoulder. Fjord, Jester, and Beauregard were a ways off by then, nearly disappeared in the murk of the city’s early evening.

“All right,” she said. “You won’t do anything dangerous without me?”

“Never.”

Nott rolled her eyes. He hadn’t known Nott long, but in the few weeks they’d travelled together, he’d learned well enough what little stock she placed in pabulum and sincerity. Sparing only a quick look and wave back at Caleb, she trotted off in search of the rest of the Nein.

Caleb stood. His knees cracked, and he briefly felt much older than his thirty-odd years. He started off in the direction Mollymauk had gone. And just as he did, a brief flash of garish purple coat cut through the gloom ahead of him and fluttered down a narrow alley to his right. He knew that coat—how could anyone who’s seen it once forget it, ostentatious nightmare that it is?—and took off after it, archive wholly forgotten.

The coat belonged to Mollymauk—of that he had no doubt. But Mollymauk had left their company several minutes ago; he should have been long gone by now, searching for whatever it was a personable fellow such as he sought alone in a strange city on the edge of night.

A thought nagged at Caleb. What if Mollymauk didn’t seek a paramour, but a contact? What if he intended to sell them out? It was a concern he’d had before, and no matter how much time he spent around Mollymauk, the concern never really settled in his gut. It isn’t entirely out of the question. Mollymauk had shown himself to be a thoughtful, warm man on some occasions, and a vicious, calculating fighter on others; the face he wore among the Nein bore little resemblance to the face he donned at the bargaining table or in combat.

The truth of the man was probably somewhere in the middle, as these things always were, and the lack of definitive knowledge of Mollymauk’s intentions vexed him entirely.

So, he picked up his pace. Soon he was racing down the street and skidding around corners. Each fall of his too-worn leather boots against the unforgiving cobblestones of Zadash sent a bone-cracking jolt of pain through his legs. Caleb was no master spy, but he managed to catch up to the purple tiefling with little trouble—the man did, after all, stand out—and he followed as close to Mollymauk as he dared. Soon enough, the man reached a broad, bustling plaza and ducked into a nondescript establishment at the plaza’s other end.

Caleb slowed, unsure of what to do next. He sidled closer to the building’s entrance, trying to catch a useful glimpse of its sign, but it was a struggle—his eyesight was not as sharp as it could have been, a side effect of the many nights he’d spent pouring over thick tomes by candlelight. When he did at last manage to read the sign, he had to stifle a nervous laugh in the sleeve of his coat.

Fair Waters, the sign read.

A bathhouse.

Scheiße.

 

#

 

The clerk at the counter regarded Molly with a bored frown from over the edge of his scuffed and thoroughly dog-eared book. He was halfway to cute, and Molly was nearly drunk enough to be interested.

“Five silvers.” The clerk’s voice was low and coarse, at odds with his rangy look and the long blond hair he’d pulled back in a sloppy chignon.

Molly leaned on the counter and put on his most winning smile. “That’s a bit steep, don’t you think?”

“No.” The clerk returned to reading. As he did, he deliberately pushed the small, gold-framed glasses perched at the edge of his prodigious nose up with his middle finger.

“What’ve you got there? Anything interesting?” Molly asked.

His skin felt like it might jump clear off his body and wander away. He cast a quick look to the door, then back to the clerk. Someone had definitely followed him, though he’d been too damnably distracted by the thought of Caleb’s stupid freckles to notice until whomever was stalking him had already been on his tail for blocks.

Idiot. He should know better than to let himself be followed.

And yet.

“Pay or get out.” The clerk looked Molly up and down, his narrowed gaze lingering on Molly’s horns. “In some parts of this city, you’d be counting yourself lucky I even let you through the door.”

“Oh, bigotry! How novel.”

The clerk pursed his thin lips. He was growing rapidly less attractive by the moment—which was a damned shame, because he did have a very enticing scar bisecting his brow.

“You’ve got a smart mouth,” the clerk said.

“You don’t.” Molly draped his forearms across the counter and leaned in close, smiling wider.

The clerk blinked, surprised.

“Do you want my coin or don’t you?” Molly purred. The wine made him bold—well, bolder than he otherwise might be. He was certainly no shrinking dayflower, but he also knew better than to push his luck with a man who was likely on friendly terms with the Crown’s Guard.

He played a delicate, mauve finger along the edge of the clerk’s book, his eyes forcing the man into an uncomfortably long shared look. The clerk’s neck flushed a bright pink.

“Four silver, five copper,” the clerk grunted. He snapped the book closed, almost catching Molly’s finger, and leaned back on his stool, fishing for something beneath the counter. He pulled out a folded square of unbleached linen and dropped it on the counter. “Wash yourself before you get in the bath.”

“Obviously.” Molly scoffs. “Do I look like an uncultured brute to you?”

The clerk waited a beat, his slate grey eyes glittering with joyful hostility. “Yes.”

Molly was careful to drop each coin on the counter with exquisitely protracted deliberateness.

 

#

 

Caleb chewed on a knuckle and fretted. There were few places to hide in a public bath. If he followed Mollymauk inside, he would be made immediately, but…

Verdammt. Mollymauk could have been getting up to gods only knew what in there, and Caleb had to be certain that everything was on the up and up. Nott’s safety, and to a much lesser the others’, was on the line. And if all was well—fantastic. He could go find that archive and get on with his evening. Maybe he could even get Nott to buy him a drink. A stiff one.

Without much time to decide, he reached for the first idea that came to mind: a spell. It was one he knew well, because he had used it to access the baths in Trostenwald. Surely there was no harm in using it again, not with his previous success. Caleb made a quick exit from the plaza and ducked into the first dark doorway he found. It took him a frantic moment to remember the incantation and gestures required, but he managed to stumble his way through it. And when he stepped from the doorway back into the street, he was a new man.

Well, new in the ways that mattered just then.

Caleb surveyed his changes. His ratty clothes, he left untouched—he’d be removing them anyway, and having to maintain the illusion on them while they weren’t on his person would have taxed his concentration unnecessarily. His body, too, he didn’t change, aside from darkening his body hair. If someone were to bump into him and he’d made himself taller, or shorter, or bulkier, they would pass right through the illusion, so that was no good.

His tangled mess of orange hair he straightened and made a deep and thoroughly unremarkable brown. He made his eyes a honey brown and set them deeper in their sockets, shortened and narrowed his nose, widened his jaw. He made his sharp chin blunt and his thin, characteristically Zemnian lips full.

In Zadash, so far from where the man he costumed himself as had once lived, no one could have known him—which was good, because he wore a dead man’s face.

Caleb shook off old, uncomfortable memories and started toward the bathhouse. Halfway across the plaza, he noticed his coat in the light, saw where lamplight shone through its fraying hems, thinning elbows, and myriad holes. That wouldn’t do. Clean or not, the likelihood that the bathhouse proprietor would let him in looking as he did like a man who’d spent a few months’ worth of nights sleeping in forests—which was precisely what he had been doing until recently—was unlikely in the extreme.

He shrugged off the coat and folded it over his arm, careful to hide the worst of its wear. His breeches were stained, his boots nearly worn through, and his tunic had certainly seen better days, but all of them were in better shape than his coat. They would have to do.

He straightened his back, cracked his neck, and strode into the bathhouse wearing the face—and confidence—of another man.

 

#

 

The clerk’s attitude notwithstanding, the bathhouse was perfectly adequate. All Molly wanted was a soak and a moment’s peace, after all, so he required little more than clean, warm water, a sliver of soap, and silence. He got two of the three.

Apparently, Zadash was situated on a hot spring, which was one fact among the many he learned from the chatty man beside him. “Not even the gods could afford the luxury of a hot bath if it weren’t for the spring,” the loud man said, his already ruddy face further reddened with laughter and drink. “Might as well be free here!”

Molly only just kept from rolling his eyes. Five silvers were hardly ‘free.’ If his wits hadn’t still been wine-fogged, he might’ve been of a mind to drag this man down to the working districts and show him what all five silvers could really buy for someone who really needed it.

Instead, he sank down into the water and closed his eyes. Distantly, he heard the sound of bare feet slapping on wet marble. A resounding crash echoed through the bath, followed swiftly by the THUNK thunk thunk of a wooden wash bucket rolling away.

“Verflu—” The bark of surprise cut off abruptly.

Molly cracked an eye. A gangly, nude man with dark hair scrabbled on his hands and knees for something beneath the washing bench. His fingers strained toward a bucket wedged in the far corner just out of his reach. The man glanced awkwardly over his shoulder, and Molly quickly shut his eyes. Poor bastard should at least be granted the dignity of maintaining the illusion he didn’t have an audience.

Oh, fuck it. This was too amusing to ignore.

The man turned back to the bucket. Molly watched him as surreptitiously as he could. He should really have offered the guy a hand. He didn’t, because gods, that’d be fucking awkward, but he should have.

With a deep, beleaguered sigh, the man pressed himself to the floor and shimmied beneath the bench. He returned shortly with the bucket in hand, and as he did, he stepped into the weak light cast by an arcane lamp burning merrily along the wall.

Molly gasped.

The man was as thin as a whip. His hip bones jutted sharply, and the outline of every rib stood stark under his pale skin. If the man had turned around, Molly would almost certainly have been able to count every single one of the knobby vertebrae running down his spine.

With a shock of shame, Molly realized the man had caught him staring. His eyes, nearly as dark as his hair, watched Molly from deep set sockets bruised with shadow. Molly opened his mouth, ready to apologize, but the man turned away, resolutely refilled the bucket from the tap, and sat down hard on the bench.

Spectacle apparently over, the chatty man who shared the tub with Molly inched a touch closer. “Anyway, like I was saying, see, Zadash is a special town—“

Molly couldn’t hear him.

Across the bath, the dark-haired man carefully palmed water from his bucket and sluiced it down his arms. He gave his underarms and groin a perfunctory scrub. Then he lifted the bucket, tilted his head, and slowly poured the water over his hair with all the reverence and show of a baptism. Molly narrowed his eyes. That was a performer’s move; Molly had done the like enough times to know it.

Still, though he knew it for a play, something about the manner in which the man had performed his little show had made Molly’s heart beat just a bit harder. Maybe it was the careful way he handled himself, like his body was a vessel he might break, or the almost pathetic way the tension seemed to fall from his shoulders as the water ran off his chin.

Whatever the reason, Molly found he needed to remind himself to breathe.

 

#

 

Caleb settled into the water and tried to fake a sigh of satisfaction. The water was uncomfortably hot, he was beginning to wonder whether this was all a paranoid detour, and, most disconcerting of all, he could feel Mollymauk’s eyes resting on him like a physical weight across his shoulders.

But he had to be sure—absolutely certain—Mollymauk wasn’t selling them out. His and Nott’s safety depended on it.  The calculus was as simple as that.

He shrank down into the water and tried his best to appear tired and inconspicuous. He wasn’t sure if he were succeeding, but he felt the burn of Mollymauk’s eyes diminish, so he must have been doing something right. His hands twisted idly through familiar spell forms in the water as he tried to look anywhere but at Mollymauk’s face.

It was a good thing he’d decided not to change his body as well as his face when he’d cast that spell. He hadn’t considered it at the time, but the distorting effects of the water might have put the lie to his outward appearance. He’d been lucky, and lucky is bad. Unreliable. His nails dug into his palms. He could not let himself be lucky again.

The insufferable man next to Mollymauk spoke up again. “Lotta, uh, tattoos and things you got there. Tattoos and scars. They’re really something. Must’ve cost you a fair bit of coin. ”

The drunk man stared hard at Mollymauk, his eyes wide and glittering. A smirk played at his lips. His cheeks—already red with drink or sunburn, Caleb couldn’t be sure—take on an almost crimson hue.

Caleb’s hands stilled. Was that supposed to be code, or did this buffoon honestly believe he could pick Mollymauk up? Whatever was going on, if this was Mollymauk’s contact, he certainly seemed an unlikely one.

Mollymauk threw has arms over the edge of the bath behind him and closed his eyes. “I can see where you’re going with this, and I’m going to have to stop you there.”

The drunk man’s smile faltered, then fell. He eyes narrowed into a scowl. “Hey, no cause to be rude—“

“It’s nothing against you, of course.” Mollymauk went as if the drunk man hadn’t just rudely interrupted him. “I’m sure you’re… wonderful? But I’m off tonight, and I don’t plan on getting back on. You understand.”

Caleb winced. Mollymauk certainly had a way with words. And if he was not careful, they might get him killed.

“So, you are of the trade. Heh, knew it.” The drunk man leered close to Mollymauk. “Listen, I came into a lot of coin tonight. Got lucky with some dice. I could make it worth your while.”

Mollymauk looked him over. Disdain curled his lip. Caleb was distinctly glad that searing look of absolute contempt was not aimed at him. “I told you politely, now I’ll tell you plain: fuck off.”

The drunk man gritted his teeth. His hands flexed beneath the water.

That was no good.

Caleb cleared his throat. “What I believe this man is saying is ‘not tonight,’ yeah?” He flattened his accent to match the one common in Zadash, but he wasn’t sure it was enough. “Everyone is entitled to their rest after a long day, aren’t they? You look like a working man. I am sure you know how it is.”

The drunk man’s face softened a touch. Whether Caleb’s words had fully penetrated his thick skull was yet a mystery, but at least he didn’t look one wrong word from throttling Mollymauk against the tiles.

 Mollymauk canted his head to the side and give Caleb a long look. Caleb’s breath stopped. Was that knowing in Mollymauk’s expression, or shrewd calculation? He’d hardly said more than a handful of words—surely Mollymauk couldn’t know it was him.

Then Mollymauk smiled wide and turned on the drunk man with a look so sharp it raised gooseflesh on Caleb’s skin.

“Well?” Mollymauk asked.

With a snarl of frustration, the drunk man levered himself out of the water and stomped into the changing area. His dramatic exit was lessened somewhat by the significant amount of time it took him to tie his shoes. When he’d finally slammed out of the room, Mollymauk turned a lazy smile on Caleb.

“My hero.”

Caleb scoffed. It came out a nervous half-cough. “I didn’t really do anything.”

Mollymauk unseated himself and glided the short distance through the steaming water to Caleb. “You talked him down.” He sat down again beside Caleb, a modest distance between them. “Shame’s a brilliant weapon, isn’t it?”

Caleb laughed awkwardly.

He stuck out a hand. “Mollymauk. Molly to my friends.”

Caleb shook it and marveled at how rough it was—had he ever touched Mollymauk? he couldn’t recall—and hoped the man couldn’t feel the trembling in his own hands. But Mollymauk didn’t let go. He kept staring, his smile sly and easy and unfaltering.

“And you are?” Mollymauk prompted. “Or is it a secret? Maybe you’re a spy. An agent of the empire! Your boss is a real bastard, you know.”

Caleb barely registered Mollymauk’s joking because, fuck, he needed a name. Why hadn’t he thought of a name? Oh, gods. Don’t say Caleb. He prayed to himself. Don’t say Caleb. He grasped at the first one he could think of. The dead man’s name. “E, uh, Elias,” he stammered.

Fan-tas-tic.

Caleb silently cursed himself. He wasn’t made for deception. He was hardly made for truth. In fact, he should probably go. Right now. Clearly, the only person with a nefarious plan in this stupid bathhouse was him, and he was cocking it right up. He should have brought Nott. She’d have known what to do. Caleb might have had a certain way with words, but Nott had wits.

Mollymauk squeezed his hand once and let it fall. If he guessed he were talking to Caleb, he didn’t let on. “The pleasure’s mine.” He grinned, and his cheeks flushed a dark purple.

His smile was magnetic, all teeth and the promise of trouble. Despite his misgivings and to his great surprise, Caleb’s heart turned over.

Damn it all.

 

#

 

Molly might not be ‘of the trade,’ as he’d led the obnoxious, drunk man to believe, at least not at the moment, but the man had pegged Molly right, in a manner of speaking, because Molly was after a quick lay. And in his admittedly limited past experience, a bathhouse was a reasonable place to expect to find one.

What he hadn’t expected was that the thin, nervous man who called himself ‘Elias’ would be game. But then Molly had introduced himself, clasped the man’s hand, and given him a genuine smile, and Elias had sucked in a breath, leaned over, and kissed him.

It wasn’t a great kiss, certainly not the best Molly had ever had, but it had been sudden, sloppy, and weirdly, even awkwardly hot. If the kiss wouldn’t make the top ten, well—he wouldn’t soon forget it, either.

They had the bath to themselves, but there was no telling for how long. Molly returned the kiss with equal ardor, pressing hard against him, pushing his tongue between his teeth. The man’s lips were soft and slightly chapped with sunburn, and Molly couldn’t help but bite at them. Elias let out a little gasp of surprise. Tentatively, he reached behind Molly and twined his hands through his hair. There was a subtle desperation in Elias’ kisses that sent a shock straight through Molly’s stomach. They were quick and breathy, accompanied by soft, sweet moans he felt in his throat, unpracticed and genuine. Molly laughed gently against his mouth.

Elias pulled away. Spit shone on his lips, and his eyebrows narrowed with something like concern. “I’m sorry, did I—I mean—“

“No, no apologizing.” Molly squeezed the man’s forearm. Molly leaned forward to kiss him again, but Elias stopped him with a hand splayed on his chest.

“But I, you— you were laughing.” His dark eyes flicked from Molly’s face.

Hells.

“I was enjoying myself. That was unexpected, but very nice.” Molly’s lips twitched into a smirk. “If you fuck up, I’ll let you know.”

“O…kay.” Elias seemed to be taking a moment to convince himself that Molly was being truthful with him.

Molly was impatient, hungry, but careful not to show it. Clandestine bathhouse rendezvous ran on a delicate balance of lust and spontaneity. It was easy to blow the whole economy if one wasn’t attentive to the other’s needs.

Elias met his eyes again, but his gaze soon wandered to Molly’s lips. Molly wanted to snake a hand around the man’s waist and squeeze, wanted to pull him into his lap and bite his neck blue—but not there, not in the public bath where anyone might find them.

Molly climbed from the water and pulled Elias after, laughing as they slipped awkwardly on the tiles, and led him deeper into the bathhouse’s recesses where the shadows hung heavy in the corners and any noise they made might be muffled by the walls and sound of running water. Molly ducked into a private alcove far in the back. It was so perfectly situated; it might have been made with this very purpose in mind.

In the relative privacy of the dark, Molly stepped closer. Elias twitched, but didn’t step away. Gently, carefully, Molly laid the tips of his fingers against the man’s chest and slowly pushed him against the wall.

Elias inhaled at the shock of the marble against his bare back, then gulped, his throat bobbing. “Cold,” he whispered. His words were soft in the dark between them, quiet. He spoke with a faint accent that caught Molly off guard, but he found it difficult to place.

The man was taller than he by several inches. Tall, and so terribly, terribly thin—that was clear now without the water to distort the shape of him. His chest beneath Molly’s fingers was bony, and his skin was marred by scars, but they were scars unlike his own. Molly traced his finger up one that started on the man’s left pectoral, curled over his shoulder and disappeared down his back. It was shaped like the scar a lash leaves.

Molly would have liked to kiss him again, but something had changed between them in the dark. The few moments it had taken them to leave the water had apparently been enough to cool Elias’ passion, because now he stood awkwardly, hunched in on himself like he didn’t want to be seen.

This man might be a project. Molly didn’t mind a project, necessarily. Gods knew he’d been someone’s project once. Many someones. A certain degree of distress was, perhaps, not an unexpected side effect of coming back from the dead. You had to rebuild yourself somehow. But here, right now, he was really only looking for a one-time thing. The Nein wouldn’t stay in Zadash forever. All the same, he was curious. There had to be a story to those scars, like as not a terribly sad one. Maybe giving Elias a chance to talk about them would settle his nerves. Maybe he just wanted to hear that voice again.

“What happened to you?” Molly asked, his voice low.

Elias raised a shaking hand to Molly’s chest. He didn’t quite touch him but hovered his fingers just above the scars that made a patchwork cross-hatch of Molly’s chest. “I could ask you the same.” There was wonder in his voice. Wonder and that accent. So soft, so strangely familiar. Its sound was a buzzing in Molly’s ear, insistent and distracting.

Elias stopped his tracing when he reached the peacock feather that spread across Molly’s shoulders. “The scars are intentional?” He rested his finger at last in the eye of the feather. “Like these?”

Molly couldn’t suppress a shiver. The man’s tentative, ghostly touches were maddening. “Yes.”

“Did they hurt?”

Molly laughed then, low and dry. “Yes. Very much.” He leaned into the touch. Growled. Breathed. “Some more than others.”

Elias grew bolder, trailing his hand from the tattoos that bloomed along Molly’s clavicle to the ones that climbed his neck.

“They’re the most boring things about me, I promise.”

“I do not doubt it.” Elias trailed his index finger up the side of Molly’s neck and along the underside of his jaw. When he reached Molly’s chin, he tilted his head up a touch, forcing Molly to look into his eyes. Arcane lantern light danced there. A frisson of electricity ran down Molly’s spine.

Molly took Elias’ finger into his mouth. He tasted like ink, gall-bitter and metallic. The man’s dark eyes widened. His breath caught. Molly felt a surge of satisfaction at that. Hands are the most sensitive part of the body. Yet, some of the people Molly had slept with had maintained a strange taboo about putting them in mouths. A shame.

As Molly was considering this and tasting the bitter ink on Elias’s fingers, he man slipped another tentative finger between Molly’s lips. Another shock to the stomach. Molly slid his tongue over their soft pads, pulled them in deeper, breathed around them in a way that made Elias’ eyes glaze over.

He took Elias’ hand and slowly pulled his fingers from his mouth. A string of spit stretched between them and broke. Then he leaned close, his mouth a breath’s space from Elias’ neck. A tantalizing heat radiated from the man’s skin. A vein pulsed hard just beneath his jaw. Molly gently bit the skin over the vein and pushed his hand flat against the man’s narrow chest. Even after bathing, he tasted like sweat. Sweat, and… something difficult to place. The air, just before it rains. The aftermath of a lightning strike. Something alchemical. It gave him a touch of vertigo.

They both breathed just the bit harder.

Too soon, Elias stiffened. Molly looked up to him for permission to continue and found he poor man had gone tense all over. Elias’ gaze roamed, searching for the exit. He was about to bolt.

Molly pulled away. He read this all wrong, though he wasn’t sure how else there was to read it. Whatever stopped Elias now, Molly could still feel the man’s erection pressing against his belly.

“Are we doing this?” Molly breathed. Restlessness and desire made his limbs heavy, and his muscles thrummed with tension. He tried to keep his tone gentle, to leave feelings out of it. He didn’t want Elias—this stranger and strangely enchanting man who apparently hadn’t had a good meal in weeks—to feel pressured.

“What is, ah, this?” Elias swallowed hard enough that Molly heard it. Already his breathing was a stuttered stop and start. His heart beat rough and fast beneath Molly’s hand.

Molly took a step back. “A diversion?” More space. No pressure. “If you’d like it to be.”

Elias blushed. Molly didn’t see it in the dim, but he felt the wave of heat that flared under the man’s skin as he flushed, and he almost laughed. Standing there stark fucking naked, fully erect, with Molly’s spit on his fingers, the bastard blushed. It was unbearably charming.

“It’s been, ah, some time. I don’t— I don’t know how to do this. But I do. Want to.” He exhaled. “I’ve definitely fucked this up, haven’t I?”

 “Nothing’s been fucked quite yet,” Molly said, and kissed him again.

 

#

 

Caleb had run through a number of potential directions his tailing of Mollymauk might have taken. Kissing him in a public bathhouse while disguised as another man hadn’t begun to make the list, let alone cross his mind. Which was not to say he didn’t like it.

He couldn’t fathom what had come over him. He certainly hadn’t planned to kiss Mollymauk. He’d just… needed to. The man glowed with an almost—gods, how to even describe it? An almost internal light. That light pointed in Caleb’s direction was like a spring in the parched desert of his self-worth. Nourishing.

Mollymauk’s tongue was hot and insistent in his mouth, and his long fingers left trails of fire down Caleb’s sides. He ran his hands roughly over Caleb’s hips, then down, grabbing firmly at his ass. Caleb jumped, and Mollymauk smiled again against his mouth. He pressed Caleb hard to the marble wall with the length of his body—it was no longer cold but slick with Caleb’s sweat. But even if it had been cold, Caleb wouldn’t have noticed, because his attention was entirely diverted by the pressure of Mollymauk’s erection against his. He hadn’t lied when he’d told Mollymauk it’d been a while since he’d last been with someone. He wasn’t even sure how long. Years? He just knew couldn’t last much longer. Not— not like this.

Mollymauk broke off the kiss and began kissing along the length of Caleb’s jaw, nuzzling against the rough growth of his facial hair. He whispered words against his skin that Caleb couldn’t understand. They were hard and guttural, purrs and growls. He’s heard Mollymauk speak that language before, if not those words. The hum of it against his throat made his knees shake.

If Mollymauk noticed Caleb’s trembling, he didn’t let on, because he continued to kiss and bite down Caleb’s neck, across the dip of his clavicle, and down his chest. Caleb couldn’t catch his breath. He thought Mollymauk might stop at his nipple, maybe give him a reprieve, but he just kept going, licking and biting a trail down his abdomen. If Mollymauk didn’t slow down, Caleb was going to come right then.

“M-Mollymauk—“ he started, his voice breathy and shaken. He corrected himself with a hoarse whisper that finished in a whine. “Molly.”  Caleb still tried to hide to his accent, but he found he had other things on his mind just then and couldn’t really concentrate.

Mollymauk gave off biting at his hips and turned bright, red eyes up on him. At some point, Mollymauk had fallen to his knees. Seeing him like that was nearly enough to do Caleb in right near. Caleb turned his face away. Looking into those eyes was too much like drowning, or staring into flame. Terrifying—and mesmerizing.

“I’m close,” Caleb whispered, and tried to swallow the shame that welled in him for how quickly Mollymauk had brought him near the edge. Gods, he was bad at this.

Mollymauk grabbed hold of Caleb’s hips and pulled them roughly toward him. “Good,” he said, smirking. “I want to suck you off. Is that all right?”

Caleb inhaled sharply. “I— yes, that’s fine, I mean—“ He took a steadying breath. Mollymauk watched him patiently, he expression betraying nothing of what he thought of Caleb’s fumbling. “That would be… nice,” Caleb concluded lamely.

Mollymauk only hummed in response. Caleb’s erection bobbed before him. Before Caleb had time to consider what it might be like, being with Mollymauk in this way, as himself, using him real name—before he had time to wonder how his name might sound if it were wrung like a cry from Mollymauk’s throat, Mollymauk took Caleb in his mouth. And Caleb did not think so much after that.

 

#

 

Elias’ nerves were almost charming. Molly might have even found them downright endearing if he didn’t also worry they kept the man from enjoying himself. He’d just have to help him overcome them.

Excellent head was a good place to start. Molly had made a point of learning the skill in the last two years, and he considered himself something of a savant. He hadn’t mastered complete suppression of his gag reflex yet, but no one was perfect. If anything, it was oddly comforting that there was always more to learn.

He splayed a hand across Elias’ belly for a little leverage and cupped his balls with his other hand. He had a fleeting moment of concern again for how thin the man was, but his thought was whisked away by the panting groan that tore from the man’s throat.

“Aah— please—“

Molly pressed harder into his belly and took his erection deeper in his throat. He bobbed in long, slow strokes, reveling in the quaint taste and shape of human cocks. Faint trembling of the man’s abdominal muscles fluttered beneath his hand. His thighs quaked. His panting breaths grew louder, harder, became groans and whines.

Elias snuck shaking hands into Molly’s hair. “Is this— okay—,“ he asked between breaths.

Molly moved his hand from the man’s balls to the cleft of his ass. Molly popped off his cock, a string of drool and precome falling on his chin. He wiped it off with a finger. “Very. Just—not the horns.” He spread the man’s cheeks a bit and pressed a finger against his asshole. “Is this?”

The man immediately let out a shuddering moan.

“Yes?” Molly asked.

“Y-yes, fuck, please—“ He twined his fingers deep in Molly’s hair and tugged. “I’m— so—“

Molly took Elias into his mouth again. As he did, he pressed his finger against the muscle at the cleft of the man’s ass, priming it the spit and precome he’d wiped on his finger. There was a moment of resistance, then release, and his finger was sucked inside. He pressed gently against the man’s prostrate, rubbing it in circular motions. That was enough.

With a hiccupping cry, Elias came hard in his mouth. Molly tried to swallow it all, but there was more than he expected, and some dribbled out of the corner of his lips. Molly swallowed through the rest of his orgasm, and at last Elias collapsed against the wall.

He muttered gibberish, dark lashes fluttering over his dark eyes. The accent came out strong this time, and Molly pegged it for something… Zemnian? A bit north of Zemni Fields, perhaps.

“Was that all right?” Molly asked. The man’s taste was still on his tongue, salty-sweet in that human way, and bitter.

“I— hah–“ He took a ragged breath. “Fuck.”

Smugly pleased, Molly wiped the come from his mouth. He breathed hard too, and he wasn’t ashamed to show it.

His mind returned to thoughts of Elias’ accent, though he tried to swat them away. If he were being honest with himself—and, gross, why-ever would he want to do that—the accent put him in mind of Caleb. Just picturing the way his cleaned face had looked in the light outside the Invulnerable Vagrant was enough to make Molly’s chest ache. Caleb was distressingly handsome beneath all that dirt, and looks aside, he was wickedly smart. Molly suspected that beneath Caleb’s layer of distrust, beneath the wild nervous energy, a dark rage simmered. Men like that, the smart ones who lived their lives buried beneath a suffocating mountain of shame… They were the most dangerous, the most enticing. And absolutely, definitely terrible partners.

Not that he wanted Caleb as a partner, or that he wanted a partner at all. In fact, as soon as he had a hefty sum of coin in his pouch, he and Yasha were going to leave these useful weirdos. Because, and here was the thing, if he hung around with them too long, they’d probably give him feelings. And feelings? Feelings made you do stupid things. Feelings got you killed.

So, no more thinking about Caleb. The topic was, as the man himself would say, verboten.

 

#

 

On the opposite side of the alcove was a marble bench, and Caleb settled shakily upon it, still coming down from his orgasm. Though he’d had nothing to drink, his head swam, his equilibrium not quite settled. Cotton fuzz clouded his mind. He was all feelings, no thoughts, just like the time he’d lost his mind. But this— well, this was different. Not empty, not wild, but sated. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was so tired.

Moments later, they snapped back open. Caleb wasn’t the most experienced of the Nein–he was sure Mollymauk took that particular title, or maybe Jester did—but he knew well enough the expected give and take of a sexual encounter. Elias had shown him that, had shown him a lot of things. And now he wore his face—

“Hey.” Mollymauk kneeled in front of him, his brow knit with concern. “Are you all right?”

Caleb took a deep breath and struggled upright. He managed to get about halfway there but discovered he was too tired to continue. Salvaging the awkward movement, he lounged instead on his side, watching Mollymauk’s red eyes appraise him.

“Yes?” Caleb said at last, laughter giving his voice a tremulous edge. “I’m— sorry, I know that was. Brief? It, I.” Caleb wrenched his gaze from Mollymauk’s. Caleb knew things. That was his entire reason for being. But he did not know how to do— to do this. To receive and give in turn, to be open and honest and… real. It galled him. It frightened him.

He forced himself to sit fully upright, spindly legs dangling over the side of the bench, and pulled Mollymauk, who still kneeled beside him, into his arms. Perhaps this was too familiar for a nominal stranger, but the man had just had his mouth on his cock. It seemed a reasonable course of action.

“Oh!” He shocked a surprised breath out of Mollymauk. “Hello to you, too.”

Caleb hooked his legs at the small of Mollymauk’s back. This close, he had a distinctly inhuman smell. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different, the way Fjord smelled different. But the smell itself was not the same. Caleb remembered the warmth of Fjord’s body as he’d tended Caleb’s cut. His soiled clothing and sweat-stained armor had reeked of stagnant sea water and rusted metal.

But Mollymauk… Caleb buried his nose in the tiefling’s sweat-dampened hair. Where his horns sprouted from his skin, Caleb smelled sun-warmed sand. And in the salt of his sweat, Caleb felt the bite of pepper at the back of his throat. Among those scents mingled an aroma distinctly Mollymauk—incense and iron, wet dirt and sandalwood.

“Mm.” Mollymauk pressed his head harder into Caleb’s hands. Far behind them, back toward main bath, came a quiet splashing, then distinctly feminine giggling. Molly chuckled. “Glad we’re not the only ones.”

Caleb moved his hands from Mollymauk’s hair, to his cheeks, then down to his jaw. He shouldn’t be doing this. Not as Elias—as a liar—but also not as Caleb, either. It was wrong, without question, for him to be with Mollymauk in these circumstances. But he was overwhelmed with a sudden, wrenching affection for the man, pummeled by a giddy fondness for his wit and ostentation. So, he drew his ink-stained fingers along Mollymauk’s jaw, lifted his chin, and kissed him. It was almost chaste in its sweetness, nothing like the fevered bite and taste they’d shared just a few minutes before.

Mollymauk sighed against him, breathed into him, then broke the kiss off with a sigh. He stood. “I should leave. It’s getting late.” But then he looked at Caleb.

Caleb leaned back against the wall, legs just spread. He knew his face—the face he’d stolen—was tight and pensive, because he felt the same feelings twist his gut. “No, please,” he whispered.

Mollymauk froze, and even in the gloom, Caleb could see the indecision that warred in his expression.

“What about you? You have not… you know.”

Mollymauk raised a plum-dark eyebrow. “Did you have something in mind?”

“No, I—“ A flush rose in Caleb’s cheeks. “Nothing specific. I just— I thought—“ He cleared his throat, took control of his voice, and breathed. “It only seems fair.”

“Fair. Hm.” Mollymauk settled gingerly on the marble slab beside him. A slight warmth radiated from his skin.

Caleb reached for him. He put his hand around the back of Mollymauk’s neck and pulled him roughly to his mouth. “Show me what to do,” he said.

Mollymauk’s cock, which had since gone soft, hardened perceptibly against Caleb’s leg. Caleb leaned back, pulling Mollymauk on top of him. Mollymauk moved like water, smooth and willful. He flowed into Caleb’s lap, straddled him, and pushed flat against the bench.

Caleb’s breath caught. He could do this. He wanted to do this. Mollymauk was— he was— Caleb inhaled a shallow breath. To think he’d come here to spy on him, so certain he’d been that Mollymauk was up to no good, when nothing of the sort had been true.

Mollymauk stretched out on top of him, his erection insistent against Caleb’s stomach. He ran his hands along Caleb’s sides, and Caleb squirmed, the ticklish feeling Mollymauk’s fingers left enough to add an edge of whine to his voice. Then Mollymauk reached for Caleb’s wrists, and before Caleb had a moment to consider it, wrenched them above Caleb’s head.

“Is this what you want?” Mollymauk asked, his voice a low rumble against Caleb’s throat. He began to bite along Caleb’s neck, along his jaw, until he found Caleb’s mouth again. He covered his lips with his own, took Caleb’s lower lip between his teeth. With his free hand, he took hold of Caleb’s hip. Slowly, he slid his cock alongside Caleb’s with only the lightest friction. Still, Caleb jumped, his back a shallow arch above the cool marble beneath him.

“Close your legs,” Mollymauk growled, and Caleb obliged. He wrapped his legs behind the small of Mollymauk’s back, trapping the tiefling’s cock between his thighs, its length pressing against his own. Mollymauk brought his free hand back to Caleb’s mouth, and he slipped three long fingers between his swollen lips.

Caleb’s breath shuddered to a stop. It was as if he were suspended in time, his mind quiet and untethered from the body he inhabited.

Mollymauk curled his fingers along Caleb’s tongue and slowly withdrew them. Smirking, he wiped Caleb’s spit between Caleb’s thighs, then repeated the process with his own mouth. Satisfied, he put his hand against on Caleb’s hip, stretched against him, and began to thrust with unhurried, deliberate movements. The hand restraining Caleb’s wrists tightened.

A few quiet moments passed punctuated only by their grunts and breaths.

“Gods, you’re—“ Mollymauk growled low in his throat. “Beautiful. Perfect. Look at you.” He let his forehead fall into the curve where Caleb’s neck met his shoulder. He bit and sucked hard at the skin there, and Caleb squirmed, trying not to cry out. The combined sensation of his restrained wrists and the friction of Mollymauk between his thighs, rubbing hard against his erection, took the words from his throat.

“You don’t, hngh, you don’t have to be quiet,” Mollymauk murmured against his neck.

Caleb tried to say Molly’s name, but it only came out a breathy whine.

 

#

 

Beautiful, Molly had said. Perfect. And Elias was.

If only he were somebody else.

Molly’s hands twitched from Elias’ wrists to his throat, and he felt the hot rush of his blood pound beneath his fingers. They wandered to his jaw, where he found muscle clenched tight, biting back cries or curses. His hands tangled in the man’s dark mop of still-damp hair. It was thick and tangled, perfect for pulling. He felt a small, tightly braided ridge of hair extending from the man’s temple. When he ran his thumb over it, Elias moaned low and soft beneath him.

Molly couldn’t last much longer.

Neither, evidently, could Elias. “Molly, Molly, Molly.” Elias whispered Molly’s name like a prayer, so quietly that, even with Molly’s mouth pressed right against the man’s throat, he only barely heard him.

“I’m here, Caleb. I’m here.”

The man suddenly arched beneath him. The strength of his second orgasm tore a shuddering cry from his throat.

That was enough for Molly. The coil of fire building at the base of his spine finally released, and he collapsed on top of Elias, their come smeared between them, shaking. The only sound between them was the gust of their breaths and the slowing hammering of their hearts. Then Molly rolled gently to the side, freeing the man beneath him. He expected they’d rest a moment more, but Elias sat up abruptly. He leaned over Molly, his dark eyes wide and suddenly intense.

“What did you call me?”

What did he call him? Molly didn’t understand the question.

Then, he did.

Oh.

Oh, fuck.

When Molly didn’t immediately answer, Elias spoke for him. “You called me ‘Caleb.’”

Shame like wildfire roared over Molly. He pulled a hand down his face, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’ve terrible manners, haven’t I?” He took a deep breath and sat up. He should really apologize, but he’d much, much rather pretend he hadn’t just done the gut-clenchingly mortifying thing he’d just done. So, instead, he patted Elias gently on the arm and moved to stand.

Elias drew his brows together and gave Molly room to pass.

Molly had confused him. Good. Maybe he’d stop asking questions. Such awkward questions. Gods. Fuck.

Free of the bench and standing, Molly exhaled and stretched. “You were marvelous, by the way. Exquisite. One might say precious, even.” His lips twisted into a faint smile. “But it’s getting late, and I should go.”

“I should as well,” Elias said after a moment, his voice faint and distant.

Molly bent down, took the man’s chin in hand, and gave him a lingering kiss. He left.

 

#

 

Caleb waited several minutes for Molly to leave being doing the same himself. The streets were wet, and a cold wind still blew through the city’s twisting alleyways, but the rain had stopped, and for that, at least, Caleb was grateful. He didn’t often pay much attention to the weather—it would be good or bad, and there was nothing he could do about it. Until very recently, his chief concern had been only whether he’d find a safe place to escape it. But that was before he found Nott and the Nein.

A few steps from the bathhouse door, a brief spark of heat in chest told him that his spell had ended, and he wore his own face once again. He’d got out just in time. That was good. He legs shook as made the long walk to the Leaky Tap, and the chill was insistent in his damp hair. That was bad. Despite that, he was warm inside and out, and the rain gave him cover for that same damp hair, so he’d be facing with no difficult to answer questions when he got to the inn. That was also good.

Caleb continued to catalogue a laundry list of good and bad things as he walked. He very carefully, very deliberately did not think about what had just happened. He listened to the drip drop of rain from roofs and the scuff of his boots against the cobbled streets. He did not think about how Molly had said his name. He did not think about that at all.


End file.
